1. Technical Field
The present invention relates to recording apparatuses such as, for example, ink jet printers.
2. Related Art
There is known an ink jet printer, which is a type of recording apparatus, having a head fixedly disposed at a position opposite a supporting portion that supports a sheet of paper, which is an example of a medium. The head has a plurality of nozzles that eject ink, which is an example of liquid, to record on the sheet of paper transported over the supporting portion. This type of printer is desired to perform “flushing” to discharge the ink inside the nozzles as needed in order to maintain and recover ink ejecting properties of the nozzles in the head. JP-A-2004-9667 describes a printer that has a head including a plurality of nozzle groups, each of which has a plurality of nozzles, and a supporting portion provided at a position opposite the head. In the supporting portion, a sheet of paper is supported by a plurality of protrusions that are disposed at positions opposite the spacings between the nozzle groups disposed in the head. This printer performs flushing by ejecting ink toward the regions on the supporting portion that are opposite the nozzle groups of the head, that is, the regions that are provided between the protrusions on the supporting portion.
However, the printer described in JP-A-2004-9667 may not stably maintain the position of the sheet transported over the supporting portion because the sheet is supported by the supporting portion only with the portions (the protrusions) opposite the spacings between the nozzle groups provided in the head. A tilted or warped sheet on the supporting portion results in the deviation of landing positions on the sheet by the ink ejected from the nozzles of the head. This may affect recording quality.